“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.” Jim Morrison

I was doing a bit of cleaning and organizing today. I came across this mask. It was gifted to me last year on my birthday. I’ve always loved masks . . . the more ornate and fancy the better. I had planned on doing one of my 365 shots with it . . . but never got around to it somehow. This was just a quick shot with my iPhone4.

I have spent years trying to remove the mask of what I think others expect from me. It’s been a long process, and I’m still working on it.

This 365 Project has been quite instrumental in helping me step out from behind the masks I’ve gotten so good at creating over the years. We all have them. Different masks suit different situations . . . help us cope all the different scenarios we face daily. I’m really, really good at hiding. Hiding, both physically and emotionally, protects me from “stuff”. I learned from a very young age that being invisible was the best strategy.

Well, I’m really out of hiding now! I’m out in the open for all to see. What you see is what you get.

I don’t know why that particular quote struck my funny bone when I read it. Jack Kevorkian . . . really?? Also I guess because I think cleaning toilets is just a part of life. If more people had to, or were required to clean toilets, maybe there’d be a bit more appreciation for the people who have to clean up the messes that those who DON’T clean toilets leave behind?? It’s not a fun job, but it’s a necessary job and just one amoungst many dirty jobs that go under-appreciated by many! OK . . . I’m coming off my soap box now and going to go finish cleaning the toilets . . . lol!

“Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.” Hoosier Farmer Quotes

Hee hee! That quote really struck me . . . not that my husband walked across the floor in his barn boots . . . but . . . he had been working out in the yard on the tractor digging trenches. AFTER I had mopped all the floors, I was walking along bare-foot and stepped in dirt that he had tracked in on his sandals. Urg!!! He’s supposed to take his shoes off at the door anyway! Oh well, out came the broom to clean up that mess. Love DOES conquer all . . .